


woodland interlude i.

by stupidgaytree



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Bad Puns, Crushes, F/F, Femslash February, Found Family, Monster of the Week, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, also the werewolves are named dora and devin and theyre twins, and she thinks it because shes getting better at control (which she is to an extent), and sloooowly getting better at it?, author is back in june to say: this didnt age well lol, but mostly its bc shes more comfortable around dani and stuff, but mostly it’s just aubrey trying not to set things on fire when dani talks to her, dani is a farm gay and ill defend that to my dying breath, i have. a vague plan for where this is going, idk we’ll see, moira is the pianist btw, some spooky stuff, uuuh.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-16 10:56:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13634871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stupidgaytree/pseuds/stupidgaytree
Summary: Aubrey really likes Dani. But apparently she just can't have some peace for once, as new obstacles reveal themselves and old ones learn new tricks.(Kind of an interlude before I get into Actual Plot with how I imagine the Amnesty story would continue!)(EDIT: While I'm very happy about season 2, I don't see the logic in continuing this story while we get the Real Thing. Thank you all for reading! <3)





	1. Chapter 1

“...So, uh, thanks for looking after him, again. Seriously.”  
  
Dani shakes her head. “He wasn’t any trouble last time. All due respect, I can deal with more than a rabbit.”  
  
“Yeah, of course, totally, I just mean — well, I just mean thank you, I guess.” Aubrey shifts her stance and offers a small smile to Dani, but regrets it almost immediately when Dani smiles back widely, making warmth bloom in Aubrey’s chest.  
  
“Really, it’s not any trouble,” Dani repeats. Her brown eyes carry a spark of… something, and Aubrey just swallows, nods, and smiles as she turns away, leaving Dr. Bonkers in Dani’s arms.  
  
She’s _doomed_. Staying here, at this lodge, with Dani — tall, radiant, talented, kind Dani — she’s going to end up burning it down. It’s not like she can go anywhere else, though, even if she wanted to leave. _Dani certainly isn’t going anywhere either_ , she reminds herself as she pushes out of the door to the lodge, remembering vividly brown eyes turned cat-like and orange, and fangs stark white against a red mouth.  
  
...Anyways. That’s all assuming she survives tonight.  
  
Aubrey shakes the idea out of her head as soon as it surfaces. They _will_ do this. No sweat. They’ve got a plan, it’ll be _fine_.  
  
“Aubrey! You comin’?” Mama’s voice reaches her ears not too far away, and Aubrey picks up her pace through the forest and calls “Yeah, I’ll be right there!”  
  
It’ll be fine.

—

Aubrey shrugs off Barclay’s movement to help her with a mumbled, “It’s okay,” and a strained smile. It’s about as genuine as it can be with her head feeling like it’s full of cotton and her chest twinging a little if she breathes too deeply. She pulls her jacket on, shifting the lapel to better conceal the Pine Guard logo, and walks out the door.  
  
“Aubrey —”  
  
“Dude, they cleared me. It’s fine.”  
  
“Yeah, I know, but don’t — don’t run off, or anything.” Barclay follows her out, and she can feel him side-eyeing her like she’ll collapse any second. She snorts.  
  
“Where would I run to?” she asks. Barclay shrugs.  
  
“I don’t know. Just strikes me as something a punky twenty-something dealing with newly-discovered fire powers and just having been knocked the hell out by a literal abomination of nature would do.”  
  
“Aw, thank you. Everybody says I’m more goth.”  
  
“You’re kinda… both.”  
  
“Damn it.”  
  
Barclay laughs, and they walk in relative silence through the hospital, down to the parking lot, where he pulls out a phone and calls someone. Aubrey faintly hears Ned’s voice say, “Hello?” before Barclay asks him where he is. She stops paying attention and stares up at the darkening sky.  
  
Barclay said she’d been out for the night and a little bit of the morning. She’d stayed at the hospital for a final check-over, and now they were leaving. She bit her lip and tried to decide whether the cool evening air soothed or stung her still-recovering lungs.  
  
“Ned’ll be here within ten minutes,” Barclay says.  
  
It startles Aubrey out of her thoughts, but she nods and says, “Cool.”  
  
Barclay doesn’t press it, just taps his foot on the stone and rolls his shoulders.

—

Ned gives her a tentative pat on the shoulder and says, “See you around,” before driving away from Amnesty Lodge. Aubrey waves after him, then turns and walks through the door that Barclay holds open. The air around her immediately warms, and she pulls her hands out of her pockets and flexes her fingers. Nice as her gloves may be in aesthetics, they’re not particularly functional in the winter safety department. She rubs her eyes and glances around, looking for —  
  
Dani is curled up in one of the chairs, blonde hair bypassing her headband and falling over her freckles. Dr. Bonkers seems to have burrowed himself into her flannel overshirt, almost blending in against the white shirt she wears underneath. Aubrey snorts and makes a quiet approach, reaching out gently to touch Dani’s shoulder when she reaches them.  
  
Dani shifts, then blinks open her eyes. Aubrey is surprised by bright orange irises staring up at her, but Dani seems unaware as she sits up, temporarily displacing Dr. Bonkers until she gently sets him back down on the cushion, then stands and says, “Oh my God, Aubrey, are you okay?”  
  
“What — I don’t look _that_ bad, do I?”  
  
“Your head’s all scraped up and you’ve been gone all day. What happened?”  
  
Aubrey hesitates and glances to Barclay. He shrugs. “I mean, it’s over now.”  
  
“What’s over?” Dani asks. Aubrey can see some of the other people in the room starting to take notice out of the corner of her eye, and she bends to pick up Dr. Bonkers from the chair.  
  
Quietly, she says, “Come on. I’ll tell you about it somewhere else.”  
  
Dani frowns, but she follows Aubrey as she heads to the only place she’s sure of in this lodge. Aubrey sets Dr. Bonkers down on his bed and pats him lightly before sitting down heavily on her own. “Can you close the door? Maybe not all the way,” she says, and Dani pulls the door mostly shut before turning to face Aubrey.  
  
“What happened?” she asks again, and Aubrey gestures for her to come sit down. After a moment, she does, and Aubrey flops back on the bed with a long sigh.  
  
“So… I dunno how much you already know.” She yawns and sits back up, continuing, “I mean, you know Silvane, of course —”  
  
“I'm unfamiliar, actually,” Dani interrupts dryly, but there’s a teasing smile on her face and Aubrey snorts. She starts to speak again, but Dani suddenly swears and starts to get up. “Sorry, I — I completely forgot I didn’t have my bracelet on, I’ll just go get it —”  
  
“You don’t have to —” But Dani is already out the door, returning a few moments later with brown eyes and the bracelet around her wrist.  
  
“Jake thought it would be funny to snatch it off my wrist for a second earlier, but Dr. Bonkers didn’t seem to mind it, so I just forgot to put it back on,” she explains as she sits back down. Aubrey shrugs.  
  
“I don’t mind it either,” she says, and Dani mirrors her shrug, twisting the bracelet around her wrist without seeming to realize it.  
  
Aubrey picks back up where she left off, choosing her words carefully. “So do you know about… the, uh, abominations?”  
  
“The what?”  
  
“Okay. So, uh, there’s like, these weird goopy spirit things? Or maybe they’re decomposed bugs or something, but they come from Silvane and kind of possess animals and then they all get joined together. It’s, uh, _super_ fucked up.”  
  
“Oh, wait — was it that thing Mama had me draw? Because, yeah, that’s really...” She shudders.  
  
“Yeah. It was a really good drawing, by the way.”  
  
Dani smiles. “Thank you.”  
  
“It chased after some people in the forest and then Duck, you remember that guy Duck? And then me and Duck and that guy Ned ran into it and fought it, and then Mama said we had to get rid of it, so we lured it to a cave, me and Mama and Duck and Ned and Barclay, and, uh, burned it and fought it more and stuff. It was really crazy.”  
  
Dani seems to think about that for a minute. Eventually she says, “You killed it?”  
  
“I think it was, like…” Aubrey pauses. “The animals it got were like, already dead? And then there was the goop inside it, which I guess we got rid of one way or another.”  
  
“You guess?”  
  
Aubrey points at the scrapes on her temple. “I hit my head on the wall and inhaled a lot of smoke and then passed out, so everything’s kinda fuzzy.”  
  
“That's why you were in the hospital?”  
  
“Yeah. I’m totally gonna be okay, though. When and if I die, it will not be to a glorified gummy bear.”  
  
Dani laughs at that, bumps her shoulder against Aubrey’s, and says, “I hope not. I’d think you’d go out in a real _blaze of glory_.”  
  
“Oh, my God,” Aubrey whispers, Dani still grinning and closer than she’d been before. Aubrey tries not to stare at her face, but she notices a little scar just on her chin, pale against her dark skin, and wonders where she got it. She can also see that Dani’s ears are pierced, with no earrings in. She wonders absentmindedly if Dani went out and did that — if she did it while she was on this plane, or on Silvane, or if she could just will the piercings into existence, and why she didn’t wear anything in them.  
  
“Aubrey?”  
  
And Aubrey realizes that she has been staring, probably really weirdly. She jerks away and says, “Sorry, I —”  
  
“Aubrey, I think your jacket’s burning.”  
  
“Oh, Jesus fucking Christ!” Aubrey scrambles away from Dani and yelps as she narrowly misses tumbling off the bed. She pulls off her jacket and tosses it to the floor, stamping on it a few times from where she still sits and exhaling loudly in relief when no further flames seem to spring up. She bends to pick the jacket back up again and sees, out of the corner of her eye, Dani staring at her. Aubrey flushes and sits back up, clutching her jacket. “Sorry.”  
  
“Your tattoos are neat,” Dani says softly, prompting Aubrey to rub her shoulder sheepishly.  
  
“Thanks,” she mumbles, and starts when Dani reaches out.  
  
“Can I look?” she asks, fingers a centimeter away from brushing her skin, and Aubrey swallows and nods, shifting closer so Dani can inspect the sleeve she has on her right arm.  
  
She expects Dani’s fingers to be a cool contrast against her skin, which she’s sure is burning for several reasons, but they feel… normal. Dani doesn’t seem to notice anything as she peers at the ink, running one finger lightly over a grinning skull on the inside of Aubrey’s wrist. She doesn’t say anything, but she raises her gaze back up to Aubrey’s eyes and holds it there.  
  
“When'd you get this one?” she asks softly. Aubrey runs a hand through her hair, dropping the eye contact with Dani to stare at the floor.  
  
“It was one of the first ones I got,” she says after a second, “I was probably eighteen or nineteen, actually, so like… four or five years ago? I didn’t really have any other ideas, so. I kinda did it just to prove that I would. My folks weren’t too happy, but I moved out pretty quick afterwards, so they didn’t have to deal with it very long.” There’s a bitter tinge to her voice that she didn’t mean to put there, and Dani pulls her hand away.  
  
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry,” she says. Aubrey looks back at her — she looks genuinely sad, and there’s a flash of empathy in her expression, too. Aubrey shakes her head.  
  
“You didn’t. It’s not really a big deal.”  
Dani looks unsure, but then there’s snuffling behind them, and Aubrey turns to see Dr. Bonkers making his way across the bed, apparently having managed to get off the endtable where his bed sits.  
  
“How'd he —”  
  
“I have no idea,” Aubrey admits, watching as he hops his way between them and settles into what Aubrey likes to call his loaf form.  
  
Dani pats him fondly on the head and murmurs, “Hey, Dr. Bonkers.” The smile has returned to her face, brown eyes warm as she looks back up at Aubrey. “Thank you for tellin' me 'bout what happened,” she says, “I assume it’s kind of hush-hush.”  
  
“You can ask Mama. I don’t really know,” Aubrey replies. Dani rises from the bed and brushes white rabbit fur off her ripped jeans, tucks some hair behind her headband.  
  
“I hope you feel better,” she says, “Night, Aubrey.”  
  
“Night, Dani,” Aubrey replies, as Dani slips out the door into the hallway. She can hear voices for a minute, then Mama pokes her head in.  
  
“Hi,” Aubrey says.  
  
“Hey,” Mama replies, “How are ya feelin’?”  
  
“Decent.”  
  
“That’s good. Please don’t almost burn the lodge down next time you talk to Dani, yeah?”  
  
Aubrey feels her cheeks flush as she says, “Yep.”  
  
“Alright. You have a good night and rest.”  
  
“Will do.”  
  
Mama disappears from the doorway, closing it behind her, and Aubrey pulls the letter out of her jacket. She skims through it again, then sets it on the endtable with a sigh.  
  
“I think it’s gonna be okay here, Doc,” she whispers. Dr. Bonkers nuzzles her hand and she pats him gently. “It’s gonna be okay.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A clarification, and the beginning of something potentially very, very bad.
> 
> Jake is the worst. Aubrey slips. Dani hopes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT 4/12/18: This chapter and entire fic was written before Aubrey was confirmed as bisexual. I regret leaping to the lesbian label so quickly for her in hindsight, but for transparency’s sake it will go unedited. Thank you guys for reading!

When Aubrey enters the main room the next morning, it’s almost empty. The only person there is Dani, who waves hello from where she’s curled up in that same chair as yesterday, a sketchbook perched on her lap. Aubrey waves back and settles onto the couch with the hot chocolate she got from the kitchen, barely blowing on it before deciding, _fuck it_ , and downing half of it in one go. Dani sits up in alarm as Aubrey coughs, almost spilling what’s left of the apparently very hot drink.  
  
“You okay?” she asks, and Aubrey waves a hand dismissively.  
  
“I’ll be fine,” she wheezes, “Probably wasn’t a good idea for my throat.”  
  
“No, I wouldn’t think so,” Dani says, but she settles back into the chair and continues drawing.  
  
Aubrey finishes her coughing fit and gives her mug a wary sideways glare before setting it on the table. “Where is everyone?”  
  
“We got a big snowfall last night, so Jake convinced everyone to go out and have some fun.”  
  
“And you… didn’t want to?”  
  
Dani shrugs. “I’m not much of a snow person.”  
  
Aubrey reaches over and pats her shoulder. “You aren’t a snow person at all. See? You’re a flesh person.”  
  
“Oh my God, Aubrey,” Dani says, and the war between emotions that seems to be happening on her face makes Aubrey crack up. “ _Flesh person?_ You had to say _flesh?_ ”  
  
Aubrey shakes her head, struggling to form a coherent sentence between wheezes, and finally gasps out, “Would you prefer _meat person?_ ”  
  
“I can’t decide if that’s worse or not,” Dani mutters, a tiny smile tugging at her lips as she looks back down at her sketchbook. Once Aubrey has regained her composure, she tilts her head and squints in the same direction. “Whatcha drawing?”  
  
Dani shrugs again, and Aubrey could swear she sees her cheeks darken, and _wow_ , that’s really cute. “I just, um… Nothin’.”  
  
“Mm-kay,” Aubrey says, watching as Dani flips to a blank page and locks her gaze onto it. “What time is it, by the way?”  
  
Without looking up, Dani says, “11:09.”  
  
“Oh, wow. Okay. You sure about that?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Cool. That’s cool.” She sits back on the cushions and reaches to take her mug again, sipping slowly this time.  
  
After they sit for a little bit in silence, Aubrey says, “Not a snow person, huh?”  
  
“Cold doesn’t agree with me,” Dani murmurs, absentminded. Then, a little wryly, “Or maybe I don’t agree with cold.”  
  
“That’s too bad. Snow’s awesome.”  
  
“It certainly looks nice, yeah.” Dani glances back up at Aubrey for a moment before returning to drawing. “I mean, I wouldn’t _mind_ going out, but I know the second I step outside I’ll get hit in the face with a snowball courtesy of Jake, so, there's that.”  
  
“I kind of hate Jake more with every fact I learn about him.”  
  
Dani laughs. “He’s not really that bad. He’s like… a weird psuedo-older brother who likes embarrassing you a lot.”  
  
  
“Jake? I don’t think so. Coolice? Definitely.” Dani’s grinning as she closes her sketchbook and stands up, stretching her arms above her head. Aubrey thinks, _oh, she has freckles on her stomach, too_ , and then Dani’s undershirt falls back over her torso as she finishes stretching with a sigh.  
  
“A lot of us make up last names like that,” Dani continues, “They’re dumb, but they work, usually.”  
  
“Yeah? What’s yours?”  
  
Dani smiles, shrugs. “Don’t really have a solid one, yet. I'll let you know if I ever pick one, so you can make fun of it.”  
  
“Aw, you're so thoughtful.” Aubrey watches as Dani makes her way across the room and disappears down one of the residential halls and lets her head fall back against the cushions of the couch with a groan. “Being that pretty is _fucking_ illegal,” she whispers, and then gets up and heads to her own room to check on Dr. Bonkers.

—

“Hey, Dani?”  
  
Dani sits up from her bed where she’s reading a book, and seeing Aubrey standing in the doorway says, “Heya. What, uh, what’s up?”  
  
“Yeah, shit, sorry, I'll — I just — there's less people, outside? Now? And I know you said you don’t like snow, but I was just wondering if you wanted to, like, just go and hang out? Outside? With me?” Dani’s wearing round glasses Aubrey didn’t know she had — she guesses they’re reading glasses, and they somehow soften her features further, the pale green rims matching her familiar flannel overshirt and standing out against her skin and eyes. Aubrey pulls her gaze away from Dani’s face, again, and stares at the floor.  
  
She can hear a smile in Dani’s voice when Dani says, “That would be nice.” She looks back up, and Dani’s eyes are bright behind her glasses, looking right at her.  
  
“Cool,” Aubrey says, and turns on her heel and walks back down the hall, reaching the door of the lodge faster than she expected to. She doesn’t have a proper jacket to wear, so she pulls her leather one tighter around her and hopes it's not any colder than it's been.  
  
“Hey,” comes Dani’s voice just behind her, and Aubrey turns. She doesn’t have a coat on either (or her glasses, which Aubrey notes with a touch of regret), and Aubrey frowns at her.  
  
“Won’t you be cold?” she asks, and Dani shakes her head.  
  
“It’s a perk.” She pushes open the door and holds it, gesturing for Aubrey to walk through.  
  
“A perk?” The snow squeaks and crunches under Aubrey’s boots and then Dani’s, and Aubrey’s breath billows around her face in the chill. She shivers slightly, but true to her word, Dani seems unbothered.  
  
“Like I said, cold doesn’t agree with me.”  
  
“Pretty convenient when you live in Kepler, huh?”  
  
“I mean, it’s not _always_ cold. We _do_ have summer. It just —”  
  
She’s interrupted by a snowball whistling just past her ear. She jerks away and glares in the direction it came from, and Aubrey turns to see Jake Coolice, grinning ear to ear.  
  
“Hey, Dani! You come out to get some fresh air?”  
“Oh, hush up, Jake. I was under the impression that this wouldn’t happen.” She turns her gaze to Aubrey, but it’s softer, good humor shining through, and Aubrey can’t help but smile back at her.  
  
“I did not guarantee a Jake-free zone.”  
  
“That you didn’t,” Dani concedes. Jake snorts.  
  
“Dude, _Jake-free zone?_ I make the mood better by walking in the room!”  
  
“Please stop talking,” Aubrey says brightly. She pushes past him into the wider area of the clearing around the lodge and surveys the scene. Everyone has more or less gone inside by now — why Jake is outside escapes her, but she’s not going to waste brain cells thinking about it. After a minute in which she can hear Jake and Dani sniping back and forth at each other, Dani appears just beside her.  
  
“Sorry about him,” she says. Aubrey shrugs.  
  
“Average straight dude. I’m very used to it.”  
  
“Oh,” Dani says. Aubrey glances at her, frowning a little.  
  
“What?”  
  
“You’re — can I guess you aren’t straight?”  
  
Aubrey blinks. “Yeah? I have a rainbow patch on my jacket.” She points to it, and Dani _definitely_ blushes this time — hard to see, but there.  
  
“I dunno, I thought maybe it was a support thing,” she mumbles. Aubrey laughs this time, sticking her hands in her pockets.  
  
“No, I’m really, really gay. Total lesbian.”  
  
“That’s nice,” Dani says, and it occurs to Aubrey that she’s barely worried about this. There was an initial flutter of nerves, but one way or another, she trusts Dani.  
  
And then Dani says, “Um, me too,” and Aubrey’s mind goes on a temporary loop of _holy fucking shit thank God that’s probably why_.  
  
“You’re melting the snow,” Dani notes, and Aubrey swears and jumps out of the puddle that’s started to form under her shoes.  
  
Dani giggles. Aubrey huffs and bends, gathering snow in her hands, and sees Dani’s expression go wary out of the corner of her eye.  
  
“Are you going to throw that at me?”  
  
“Maybe.”  
  
“What if I throw one first?”  
  
“Then I’ll throw mine, and it’ll be a _thing_.”  
  
Cold slams into Aubrey’s shoulder with unexpected force and she yelps, stumbling a little as she stands up. Dani has her hands over her mouth to hide her grin, voice muffled as she says, “Oh my God, are you okay? I didn’t mean to throw it that hard!”  
  
“Jesus, Dani, how fucking strong are you?”  
  
“I dunno? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”  
  
Dani squeaks as a snowball hits her square in the chest, but she comes up laughing, snatching more snow from the ground and hardly bothering to shape it before launching it. Aubrey ducks, and ends up with snow in her hair and cold water trickling into her eyes. She blinks it away and grins.  
  
They keep trading shots like that for a while; dodge, hit, throw, until Dani’s hair has come loose from her half-bun and is working its way free from her headband and there’s an absolutely uncomfortable amount of snow in Aubrey’s boots. After about twenty minutes, Aubrey’s only a few unfortunate feet from Dani when she slips on ice she doesn’t notice. She topples with a yell, and Dani lunges forward to steady her, somehow managing to slip on the same ice patch and taking them both down.  
  
The first thing Aubrey hears is a soft “Ow,” near her ear, and she sits up on the palms of her hands, wincing at what she’s sure is going to be a bruise on her hip.  
  
One of the first things she sees is wide brown eyes, freckles, and blonde hair in a halo on white snow — Dani’s face entirely too close to hers. Aubrey feels her throat go dry, and there’s that nervousness from earlier, bubbling in her stomach, but it’s also warming her chest, fuzzing up her train of thought, and _wow_.  
  
“Uh,” Aubrey says, because that’s really all her short-circuited brain can manage right now.  
  
Dani hasn’t broken the eye contact. She stares right back at Aubrey, looking on the edge of saying something and withholding it.  
  
It takes them both a minute of silence to realize that smoke has yet again started to curl off Aubrey’s jacket, and when she does Aubrey rockets away from Dani like she’d just been punched and tosses her jacket into the nearest snowbank, standing up almost immediately to retrieve it.  
  
When she’s sure the jacket’s done smoking, she turns back. Dani is standing now, inspecting her more or less soaked flannel and fixing her hair. There’s still a flush of color on her face, but Aubrey shoves it out of her mind.  
  
“Sorry. About that,” she says, shaking out her jacket. Dani shakes her head.  
  
“You okay?” she asks.  
  
Aubrey shrugs. “Couple bruises. I’ll be alright.”  
  
Dani nods, bites her lip, and then says, “I’m going to head back inside.”  
  
“That’s fair.”  
  
Dani looks like she wants to say something else, but she just nods again, turns around, and walks away. Aubrey is left alone in the clearing after the door swings shut.  
  
“God damn it,” she mutters, “Oh, I am so, so doomed.”

—

Dani doesn’t seem interested in mentioning the snowball fight in the next few days, and then week. Aubrey’s not sure if she’s grateful or disappointed about it, but she doesn’t bring it up either.  
  
It takes a weirdly long time for anyone at the lodge to find out what Ned did with his footage of Barclay, but when they do, everyone’s pretty much pissed as hell. Mama half-jokingly invites anyone who’d like to go chew him out to go with her to the Cryptonomica. Nobody actually volunteers, but they all wave Mama a cheery goodbye as she heads out the door with Barclay. Even Jake takes the time to say “S’inconsiderate, dudes.”  
  
“I can’t believe this,” Moira hisses from her customary seat at the piano. “All that happened, and he thought it was a good idea? What the fuck?”  
  
The twins, Devin and Dora, nod in agreement. “It’s not as if everyone’s going to think it’s a fake video on sight,” Devin says.  
  
“We’ll be lucky if no one investigates,” Dora mutters.  
  
Dani doesn’t say anything from what seems to be her favorite chair, but her mouth is set in a grim line. Moira and the twins keep discussing it, with Aubrey piping in once or twice, until the door swings open and Mama and Barclay return.  
  
“He says his assistant’s responsible,” Mama grumbles. The room lets out a collective noise of dissatisfaction.  
  
“Despite the fact,” Barclay adds wryly, “That he most certainly had the power to take the video down. There were at least twenty people in that shop when we were there, and at least three were talking about looking around in the woods for Sasquatch, but he seemed content with pulling the old-man-new-tech card.”  
  
“Jesus Christ.” Moira snarls, getting up and disappearing down the hall. Dora watches her go sadly, while Devin shakes his head.  
  
“Why doesn’t he get his assistant to take it down, then?” he asks. Mama shakes her head.  
  
“He said he would ask, but even if he does, the damage is done.” She moves to sit down on the couch, Aubrey scrambling from the middle to the side to give her room, and sighs. “We’re just going to have to hope they don’t find us, or at least don’t suspect anything. I’ve already given Duck a ring to ask him to try and keep ‘em out, so he’s doing what he can there.”  
  
Aubrey catches Dani’s eye and tries to flash a reassuring smile. Dani returns it, but it doesn’t reach her eyes — she looks frustrated and a little scared, and Aubrey can’t blame her, or any of them. She’s kind of scared, too; she hasn’t been here long at all, but Amnesty Lodge feels right in a way a lot of places never did. She _belongs_ here, and she’s safe here. She remembers vividly Mama’s words on that first night; _“This is like, end of the world level secret.”_  
  
“We’ll figure it out,” she says, her voice steadier than she expects it to be. “I, for one, will not be letting this place go to hell any time soon.”  
  
Mama nods. “Yeah. Chins up, y’all. We made it this far, and we’ve had some close calls, right?”  
  
Dora nods, and Dani catches Aubrey’s eye again, this time a little more hopeful.  
  
“Yeah,” she says, “We’ll figure it out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok order of operations here:  
> yes, [snow squeaks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfD11omFQ88), dont challenge me on this ive been dealing with it for the last 4 months and also my entire life  
> i’ve started doing chapter summaries! bc why not and also it gives me incentive to make things more ~action packed~  
> also i guess there’s an overarching plot now? and theme? i hate that jake coolice is a significant part of my found family fic but yknow  
> also its safe to assume that the people who live at amnesty lodge do like, go outside, so its perfectly reasonable for dani be an incredibly relatable wlw presence in this fic. thanks  
> speaking of dani i have no clue what kind of cryptid she is. im just making it up as i go. theres no evidence to suggest that dani has been irresponsible enough for a regular human to see her in monster form  
> uuuuh i think thats it! chapter 3 should be up soon-ish, maybe even on valentine’s day (aka the day big companies use the concept of love to sell a lot of stuff. yay, capitalism!) but we’ll see! im aiming for each chapter to be around 2k words, which, oof. anyways! thank you so much for reading and now i have to go write 400 words about the 1980s dnd discourse within a day oh boy


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plot thickens as the forest quiets.
> 
> Dani enthuses about flowers. Aubrey lights it up. Mama deals with some unexpected customers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! thank you for reading!  
> i want to preface this chapter with a warning: there is a **mention and brief description of animal death/animal body horror**. i don’t think it’s any worse than the actual abomination by a long shot, but just to let you know! if you don’t want to read that, stop when the forest goes quiet and scroll until the next scene change (which are always marked with this character: —). take care!

“You know, Mama sent us out to like, cover trails or something, but I’m not seeing any trails except the _literal_ road.”  
“Evidence,” Dani calls back from up ahead, “I don’t know, Aubrey, hide any wolf hair you find.”  
“How do I distinguish wolf hair from not-wolf hair?”  
“Well, one comes from a wolf or werewolf.”  
“Uh-huh. Great, thanks.” Aubrey pauses to inspect markings on a tree that turn out to be weird bark. “I mean, it’s winter. And you guys are very good at covering your trails.”  
Dani sighs. Aubrey sees her brush some hair back into place when she says, “Mama’s being cautious, is all. Wouldn’t you?”  
“Mm, I think I’d go kick Ned’s ass and then delete the video.” She quickly adds as Dani looks back at her, “But no, I mean, I get it. This is a really important place. And people — humans? Finding out about it would be really bad.”  
“Apocalyptic,” Dani says absently, staring up a tree at something Aubrey can’t see.  
“Yeah. That.”  
After a few moments of silence, a smile breaks out on Dani’s face, one of the first genuine ones Aubrey’s seen in the last few days. She glances at Aubrey, eyes shining, and says, “Look,” pointing right up the tree.  
Aubrey joins her underneath the tree after a moment or two, squinting up at the branches. Eventually she concedes and says, “What’s up there?”  
“The trees are budding.”  
Aubrey stares at the branches some more and, seeing absolutely nothing, says, “Huh. Kinda cold for it, though.”  
“It’ll get warmer. Soon, probably. The trees are rarely wrong.” The weak sun shines through the branches of the forest, falling in sharp angles of light on the snow on the ground and the people trudging through it. Dani tilts her head and smiles wider.  
“Aubrey,” she says softly, “Do you hear that?”  
Aubrey listens, and after a few seconds she realizes that she can hear the chirps and trills of birds. There had been some birds already, but none of them sounded so bright and cheerful as these ones did.  
“Soon I can replant the garden,” Dani continues, turning away from the tree and walking ahead, seeming to be thinking out loud rather than actually addressing anyone. Aubrey gives the tree a last glance before following, seeing little signs of spring everywhere now she knew to look — or at least a thaw.  
“What kind of stuff do you grow?” she asks. “Like, food? Or just flowers, or…?”  
Dani hums, seeming to think about it. “It depends on the year,” she says, “Last year we grew some vegetables, but this isn’t a great climate for it, so only a few ended up growing well. We tried some milkweed to attract butterflies, but that didn’t go so well either. So, mostly just flowers.” She starts to count off on her fingers. “Some chrysanthemum, violets, forget-me-nots, we managed some lilies and azaleas…” she trails off, glancing at Aubrey. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to ramble.”  
“No, that’s okay. I like listening to you.” Aubrey smiles back at her, and Dani opens her mouth, then closes it again and stares at the path ahead, if it can be called a path — more of a break in what’s left of the foliage.  
After a minute or so of silence, with Dani occasionally stopping to inspect something before quickly moving on, Aubrey asks, “What about this year?”  
“...Violets again, I think,” Dani says, “Maybe roses. Tulips, hyacinths. I don’t want to set anything in stone right now.”  
“That sounds nice, though.”  
“It always is.” There’s a little bit of a laugh in her voice as she continues, “Mama thinks I like violets so much because they remind me of myself, or something. Pretty and tough.”  
“I mean, that does sound like you.” Aubrey wants to clap her hand over her mouth the second the words are out, but instead she starts walking faster, trying to subtly outrun her utter lack of a filter between her mouth and her brain.  
“What — I don’t —” Dani sputters behind her, “That —”  
“Hey, do you hear that?” Aubrey interrupts, grasping at straws for a change of topic, but Dani pauses and frowns as Aubrey turns to look at her.  
“No,” she says hesitantly, “I don’t hear — anything.”  
Aubrey listens and realizes with a start that Dani is right — there is no more birdsong, no more rustling of tiny creatures in the brush. Only the wind remains, rattling through the branches, and if it weren’t for the two of them, the forest would seem uninhabited and lifeless. It’s incredibly unsettling, and Aubrey realizes with a sinking feeling that it’s familiar.  
“It’s like in movies,” Dani murmurs, “When the predator is about to reveal itself and —” She stops, staring over Aubrey’s shoulder with wide eyes.  
“Is there a —”  
“Shh,” Dani whispers, eyes never straying, “Don’t move.”  
“It’s not like it can only see movement —”  
“Shh!”  
The snow crunches behind her, and Aubrey hisses, “So do I keep standing here, or…?”  
Dani hesitates, eyes finally flicking back to Aubrey’s face, until there’s another footstep, and then another, and she finally shouts, “Go!”  
Aubrey doesn’t hesitate, tearing off before Dani is finished speaking and slowing only to make sure she’s following before breaking back into a run. She tries to remember which way the lodge is, but with the combination of adrenaline and fear of their nearly-silent pursuer she pulls a blank. She decides she’s just going to have to hope for the best and keeps running.  
Luckily, Dani seems to have a better sense of direction, and she pulls ahead, veering to the right and disappearing behind a thicker clump of trees, calling back, “This way!”  
Aubrey starts to follow her, but just before she reaches the clump she hears a yell and a gurgling growl and a second set of footsteps through the snow ahead. She turns the corner and sees a wildcat on Dani’s heels, black goop following it and melting the snow where it falls. She swears and speeds up, hands moving on instinct and flicking towards the beast.  
With a _whoosh_ , a fair-sized ball of flame slams into it, and it tumbles to a stop. Aubrey hops over it with a cringe and glances behind her in time to see a wolf trip over the body, rolling in the snow and struggling to get up, claws sliding over what must be an unseen patch of ice.  
She whoops and yells to Dani, “I think we lost them!”  
“Aren’t those like the abomination you told me about?” Dani looks behind her, then slows down a little bit, allowing Aubrey to close the gap.  
Aubrey grimaces. “There seem to be more than expected, yeah.”  
It wasn’t a _lie_. She _hadn’t_ expected to see more of them so soon. She was pretty sure Mama had said they took a while to pop up, but it’s only been a little more than a week.  
“That’s… hm. Alright. Well, we should probably get back to the lodge and let Mama know,” Dani glances behind them again, but they’ve left behind the thicker trees and the abominations are nowhere to be seen. She shudders. “God, they’re even worse when you’re looking _at_ them. I don’t want to _think_ about the one you fought. Poor things.”  
“Uh-huh. It was, like I said, _super_ fucked up.”

—

The trek back to the lodge is mostly uneventful. A few times a bird shrieks, startling them, but no more animals leapt out to attack them. Aubrey wasn’t sure if it was a relief or not.  
Dani pushes open the door, saying, “Uh, Mama, we have an issue —”  
She stops halfway through over the threshold, and Aubrey peers inside to see what had interrupted her.  
“Oh, God,” she said, louder than she meant to. One of the unfamiliar people inside gives her a curious look, and Mama glances over to them, expression showing the slightest hint of strain.  
“There you are,” she says, “Can it wait a moment? I am, uh, explaining to these lovely folks that we neither have any free space nor host Sasquatch.”  
Dani shakes her head. “No, this is kind of important, actually —”  
“What’s the issue?” one of the people says excitedly — a middle-aged man with weirdly neat clothes for being out in a snowy forest apparently hunting for cryptids. “See something odd in the woods? Something… _unexplainable?”_  
“No, pretty explainable, actually,” Aubrey pipes in. Again, not a lie, for residents of the lodge.  
The man’s face falls, and one of his companions glances back at Mama. “We might be looking through the woods near here, if you don’t mind.”  
Mama opens her mouth to respond, but catches sight of Dani and Aubrey shaking their heads and seems to change her mind. “I do, actually,” she says, “I pride myself on running such a quiet establishment up here. I’d rather not my clientele have to deal with scientists poking around in rabbit holes for something they won’t find. I’m sure that’s perfectly reasonable.”  
The woman purses her lips but doesn’t push the matter, gesturing to her two companions to leave.  
“Have a good one, ma’am,” she says, before following them to the door. Dani and Aubrey scramble inside to let them out, and as the door swings shut Mama lets out a long sigh.  
“Bolt the door, will you?” she says. Dani nods and the lock clicks into place. Mama shakes her head and sits down heavily on a chair. “They really don’t miss a beat, huh,” she mutters. Dani goes to sit down while Aubrey heads to the rooms to find Dora and Devin.  
“Hey,” she says, knocking on the open door. Dora looks up from the newspaper she has.  
“Did those scientists leave?” she asks. Devin is on the floor with Dr. Bonkers in his lap, nibbling a celery stalk, and he snorts disparagingly.  
“One of them wanted to inspect the rabbit,” he says, “So we came in here to get away from him. Weirdo. What’s a rabbit have to do with Sasquatch?”  
“Yeah, they’re gone. Thanks for looking out for him, by the way,” Aubrey says. “He wasn’t any trouble, was he?”  
“No, he’s a little sweetheart.” Dora slides off the bed and scoots next to Devin, patting Dr. Bonkers on the head. “Aren’t you?”  
“You know, I’ve never heard anyone call him a _sweetheart._ ” Aubrey bends and reaches out, and Devin lifts the rabbit into her hands. Dr. Bonkers keeps a firm grip on his celery even as he’s passed around, and he snuggles into the crook of her elbow as she stands, munching happily.  
“That’s too bad,” Dora says.  
“He really is a nice rabbit,” Devin adds, “I mean, I don’t know rabbits, but he’s a good one.”  
“He says thank you,” Aubrey informs them, and gives a little wave goodbye as she leaves.  
When she walks back into the main room, Mama has a grim look on her face as Dani explains the abominations they saw in the forest.  
“This is,” she pauses, “Inconvenient.”  
“Little bit!” Dani agrees, “Definitely not the best time.”  
“Has Duck been here while we were gone?” Aubrey asks. Mama shakes his head.  
“He’s says he’s been busy,” she says, and then wryly, “Though I don’t know how much of his workload is just avoiding the supernatural. I’ll give him another call — either that, or he runs into the things himself while he’s trekking around, and then it’ll either get dealt with or it won’t.”  
“Hope he doesn’t die,” Aubrey says, “Actually, I’m surprised he didn’t materialize when I shot fire at the — the abomination. I think I killed it.”  
Mama raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment further, instead getting up and heading for the door.  
“I’m going to make sure those scientists left,” she says, “You stay put for a while. All of you. She glances to the hallway, from which Moira is peering out at the happenings. Moira nods stiffly and disappears back down the hallway.  
“No problem,” Dani says, and waves as Mama leaves. Once the door swings shut, she leans back against the couch and presses her hands to her face with a groan. Aubrey goes to sit next to her, shifting Dr. Bonkers so he sits between them, still eating his celery and apparently unfazed by the sky-high levels of stress that have been permeating the lodge for the last two days.  
“Well, at least we can probably get rid of the abominations pretty quickly,” she offers. Dani sighs.  
“Yeah, it’s the tourists and scientists we have to worry about, I guess. Not that that’s going to stop me from worrying about everything anyways.”  
Aubrey nods, and then frowns as Dani pulls her hands from her face. “Your hand’s all scraped up.”  
“Yeah, I kinda fell against a tree when that cat jumped out at me. It’s fine, though. I’ll clean it up later.” She wiggles her fingers as if to prove they still work.  
“Well, until then, we do have a doctor in the house.” She pats the rabbit and Dani laughs, reaching to pet his back. Dr. Bonkers snuffles around the couch and then tries to dig into the cushions, prompting Aubrey to hurriedly pick him up and put him back in her lap.  
Dani smiles, and then says, “Aubrey?”  
“Uh-huh?”  
“Thanks. For, uh, for sticking around, I guess. You could have left any time, we couldn’t stop you, but you’re still here, and that… means a lot.”  
Aubrey thinks about what she could say. She could say, _Where else would I go?_ or _Don’t mention it_ , or something mushy about how _good_ this place feels, or she could even say that she had told Mama she would.  
Instead she says, “Duh. Me and the Doc’d miss you guys. Plus, you’re one of the only people I’ve met who actually puts up with my puns.”  
Dani just looks at her for a few moments.  
“Either way,” she says at last, softly, “Thank you. I mean it.”  
“I know,” Aubrey says, “Thanks for having me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heeeeeey im back and i don’t know shit about flowers!  
> the abomination subplot was originally going to come in later, but oh well. i guess i just have to deal with the consequences of my actions  
> also, did you all know that “crunchy” generally means a hippie? because i didn’t and now dani wears flannel instead of like, a floral patterned shawl. i don’t want to go back and edit the other chapters right now so just imagine whenever it says she has a flannel overshirt its actually a vaguely shirt-shaped flannel shawl its fine  
> ANYWAYS. i hope you guys — fuck i almost typed gays. you know what if you’re reading this you probably fit the bill i hope you gays had a good valentines day! i ate a really good orange that was red inside. not a blood orange though it was something else  
> aaaand thats the end of my spiel i think! thanks again for reading, i have some School Stuff to do and also odaat to binge but the long weekend will hopefully negate that in terms of time for writing, so. see ya soon!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trees have eyes.
> 
> Ned avoids the question. Aubrey hits her limit. Duck is pretty much the most competent person here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey so another content warning: same as last chapter, stop when they reach the arch and pick up again when they go back to the car, unless you don't wanna see some like, vague mix of animal and plant horror, and then just like. scroll until aubrey's back in the lodge which is like the end of the chapter shjdjdksjd and there's animal death implied throughout. yea. watch out for yourselves!!! also this got really long on accident sorry

The next day, at 8 a.m. sharp, Duck appears at the Amnesty Lodge. Mama takes him aside, into her office, and starts explaining the events of the day before, with Aubrey correcting her occasionally, and he nods along, asking few questions.  
When they’ve finished, he takes a moment to think. Eventually he drawls, “Well, at least they aren’t merged into the big ol’ thing yet.”  
“To our knowledge,” Mama says. Duck shrugs and gets up from his chair.  
“We just gotta track ‘em down,” he says, “Which, granted, may be hard, as they are smaller than —”  
“Duck Newton, with all due respect, I’ve been doin’ this for years. This is the default for me. They’re not that hard to find. You are right, that it’ll be easier to find if it were bigger, but the thing drips black goop all over the place. Y’all won’t have a big issue with it.”  
“What — us? Just us?” Aubrey interrupts. “You’re not —?”  
“I gotta clean up Ned fuckin’ Chicane’s mess, since he apparently has no interest in that.” Mama shakes her head. “Duck says they may not be merged yet, and he’s not wrong. Just find ‘em and pick ‘em off sometime tonight. We don’t know how long they’ve been wanderin’ around. It wasn’t supposed to turn up for a couple of months, at least, so we’re a little in the dark.”  
“Well, should we — should we at least have Ned around to help?”  
“Yeah, why not. Swing around the Cryptonomica and drag him along. He’s a part of this operation. The man deserves this, at least.” Mama rises from the desk, leaving Aubrey as the only one still sitting. She quickly stands, Dr. Bonkers in her arms, but neither of them seem to register a big difference, which isn’t a real surprise as she’s just barely taller than Duck’s shoulder.  
“I’ll come back around seven,” Duck says, “We’ll strategize on the way to and from the Crypt. I got work to do.”  
“Sounds good,” Aubrey replies.  
“If you burn the forest down while we’re out there, I _will_ arrest you.”  
“What, no three strikes?”  
“We have one forest, Aubrey.”  
“Yes, yes. I won’t. Maybe a bush, but on accident, promise.”  
Duck lets out a long-suffering sigh, turns, and walks out the door. “Back at seven,” he calls over his shoulder.  
“See ya,” Aubrey responds as the door shuts behind him. Mama shakes her head again and starts shuffling papers on her desk.  
“You can go, Aubrey. Unless there’s somethin’ else.”  
Aubrey shakes her head and leaves. She adjusts her jacket as well as she can with a large rabbit in her arms, shifting the lapel so it covers the Pine Guard logo, and catches sight of a District Ranger vehicle pulling away from the lodge through the screen door. _Well, I guess that’s that._  
“Another abomination situation?”  
Aubrey wheels around to see Moira, almost out of place away from the piano.  
“That —”  
“Aubrey, I have been here for almost thirty-two years. I would be part of the Pine Guard if there weren’t a concern about me losing my necklace while hunting and going incorporeal.”  
“Oh. I didn’t know that.”  
“No, you wouldn’t.” Moira looks almost smug about it as she continues, “This is unexpected, yes? The beasts don’t usually return so quickly.”  
“No.” Aubrey glances over Moira’s shoulder at the living room. There’s no one else there, but Moira waves her hand dismissively.  
“It’s not nearly as big a deal as Mama and Barclay like to make it that the Guard stay a secret. We’re all mature adults here — or, most of us.” Aubrey opens her mouth to object, but Moira just keeps going. “I keep the secret because she asks. I consider myself a woman of honor, so really, what choice do I have?”  
“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Aubrey says. Moira nods and breezes past her to the door.  
“Wait, where are you going?”  
“To town,” she says, “You do know we leave sometimes, yes?”  
“Yeah, but —”  
The door swings shut behind Moira as she leaves, cutting Aubrey off with a metallic whine and a click. She blinks, shakes her head, and decides to leave her alone. She can talk to her after they’re done with the abominations.

—

Not long before seven, the wind starts to pick up outside and then howl, whining through the walls as snow begins to fall through the branches to the ground below.  
Dani comes inside with snow in her hair and a shade of disappointment on her face, bolting the door behind her after checking to make sure no one else is still outside. She flops into her customary chair and gives a halfhearted wave to Aubrey, who’s perched on the arm of the couch.  
“Spring, huh?”  
The slightest of smiles breaks over Dani’s face. “The trees are _usually_ right.” Then it fades again. “I wasn't even going to plant anything yet. I was just clearing the ground.”  
“Well, sooner or later, right? Winter’s not gonna last forever.” Aubrey shifts onto the cushions for the singular purpose of leaning over the arm backwards and grinning at Dani upside down. “I can’t wait to see the garden, by the way.”  
Dani looks at her for a moment, then reaches out and taps her nose. “You have freckles.”  
“What? I do not.”  
“You do. Little ones. They’re kinda hard to see.”  
“Dani, this is my _face_. If anyone knows whether they have freckles, it’s _me_.”  
Dani shakes her head, smiling, and Aubrey insists, “I’ve never had freckles! They're probably just, like, pores or something.”  
Dani snorts. “I hope not.”  
“Yeah, me too. Besides, they don’t qualify as freckles if there are like, three of them. They're just dots. _You_ have freckles.” To illustrate her point, she stretches to tap Dani’s nose in return.  
“Freckles don’t have rules to them, Aubrey.”  
“They do when they're on my face.”  
“So you admit you have freckles.”  
“ _No_.”  
“Why are you so opposed to having freckles?” Dani asks. Aubrey flips onto her front and leans towards her over the arm of the couch.  
“I'm not! Freckles are fine! Yours are cute!” She says it without thinking, internally winces, and decides to just keep talking and hope Dani doesn’t pay too much attention to that particular line. “I just don’t _have_ them. I never have!”  
“So it’s an issue of being right?”  
“A little bit, yeah! I should probably be the person who knows my face best on this planet!”  
Dani’s leaning in, now, too. Her eyes are warm with humor, her cheeks are a little flushed, and she looks like she’s trying not to laugh. “I don’t know how to prove to you that you have dots on your face.”  
Aubrey opens her mouth to reply, not really sure what will come out, when Mama’s voice comes from the doorway. “Duck’s outside, Aubrey.”  
“Oh.” She glances over at Mama. She's standing at the doorway with eyebrows raised, jerking a thumb towards the door, and Aubrey finds herself suddenly hyperaware of the minuscule distance in space between her and Dani. She quickly scrambles up from the couch and starts making her way to the door.  
“Where are you going?” asks Dani, and then, “Are you going to deal with the abomination?”  
“Yeah. Uh, see you later?”  
Dani nods, biting her lip, and says, “Good luck.”  
“Yeah.”  
“Don’t die.”  
“It’s like, three cats and a turtle, probably.”  
“Don’t die,” she repeats, eyes locked with Aubrey’s. “I’ll keep an eye on Dr. Bonkers until you come back.”  
Aubrey nods, gives a little wave, and brushes past Mama to leave. Mama stops her with a hand on her shoulder, and Aubrey looks up at her.  
“Stay safe,” she says, then pats Aubrey firmly on the shoulder.  
“I’ll try. Very angry creature from another dimension. No promises.”  
“Alright, that’s fair.” She turns and heads off in the direction of her office, and Aubrey pushes open the door and steps out into the snowy forest, towards the District Ranger vehicle idling nearby.  
She knocks on the passenger’s side window, and it rolls down to reveal Duck, gesturing for her to get in. She does, and Duck just sighs at the snow on her boots.  
“Alright, we’ll go and get Ned,” he says, “And his car, because I am not driving this one around the forest to find some goopy rabbits, and then we’ll go and start lookin’ around. We’ll start near the arch, I think. All that cool with you?”  
“What happens if Ned doesn't want to come?”  
“We’ll take his car anyways. I’m not debating with him tonight. Put on your seatbelt.”  
Aubrey grumbles to herself about not being a little kid but puts on the seatbelt. Once it’s clicked into place, Duck starts backing out, frowning at the falling snow like it stole a precious heirloom from him.

—

“Can I turn on the radio?”  
“Why?”  
“Uh… music?”  
Duck snorts. “You can try. We’re in a bit of a dead zone. Good luck.”  
After flipping through the channels for a few minutes and hearing only static and some occasional snippets of what sounds like news, Aubrey gives up and turns it back off. She stares out the window at the snow for a bit, until Duck says, “You didn’t know about the dead zone?”  
“I knew about it. I just didn’t care until, like, two seconds ago. I’ve been busy! And we get newspapers at the lodge! I haven't needed a connection for a while.” Aubrey shrugs. “I dunno. I’ll adjust.”  
“You don’t seem like the type of person to stay in one place very long, to me.”  
Aubrey shrugs again. “I mean, my whole thing is being a traveling magician. Specialized in pyrotechnics, obviously. I guess I could leave any time I wanted, but… I don’t? Right now? This… it’s a good place.”  
Duck casts her a sidelong glance. “What, Kepler?”  
“Well, the lodge, specifically. Or I guess the people.” The letter Mama gave her is still folded in the pocket of her jacket. She rests her head against the window and squints at her reflection, looking for freckles.  
“Yeah? That's real nice for you.” The car comes to a stop with a vague squealing noise, and Aubrey starts at the sight of the Cryptonomica before them. “Let's drag this guy out of his hole.”  
“Oh, we’re _both_ going in?”  
“You won’t be staying in this car either way.”  
“Gotcha.” Aubrey pushes the door open and hops out into shin-deep snow. “What the fuck?”  
“You really are new around here, huh?”  
“This is excessive.”  
“Yeah, this is Kepler. Come on, Torch Girl.”  
“Lady Flame. _Aubrey_.”  
“Will you just go inside?”  
Aubrey pushes inside the Cryptonomica with Duck behind her. She sees Ned Chicane glance up at them and blanch, especially when Duck says, “Ned, can we talk? We have business to take care of.”  
“Uh, well, yeah, we can — we can head on back to the Chicanerie, if that’s — excuse me, ma’am —”  
“Yeah, please,” Duck replies, and Ned leads them through the small mass of people to a door in the back with four locks on it. He fumbles with some keys for a few moments, then unlocks it and leads them inside.  
Locked display cases and shelves full of what looks like either junk or weird artifacts fill the room. Aubrey glances around, her eyes landing on one in particular. “Why do you have an Oscar?”  
“That's a long story that I’m not gonna tell you. What can I do for you?” he asks Duck. Duck raises his eyebrows.  
“There’s some more of those abominations in the woods. You’re going to come with us and help us take care of them. Or at least loan us your car.”  
Ned looks like he would rather do anything else, so Aubrey adds, “You kind of owe the people at the lodge, at least. They shouldn't have to worry about this and the video right now.”  
Ned lets out a long sigh, and after a moment of consideration says, “Fine. But why do we need _my_ car?”  
“I’m not going to crash a District Ranger vehicle in the middle of the woods swerving to avoid a bear from hell,” Duck informs him. Ned scowls, shakes his head, and pushes past them to leave the room. “Come on, then. If I must.”  
“That was easy,” Aubrey says. Duck shrugs.  
“I can hear you,” Ned says from the doorway, glaring at both of them. “Come on.”  
“Alright, alright.” Duck follows him out, Aubrey bringing up the rear. As they head for the door of the Crypt, a guy with bright pink hair who seems to be showing off some merchandise glances up at them.  
“Ned? Where are you going?”  
“Out, Kirby. I’ll be back sooner or later.”  
“Uh, that's weird, but alright. See ya.”  
“Yeah.”  
The door of the shop closes behind them, and Aubrey asks, “Is that guy your assistant?”  
“Yeah, Kirby. He’s in charge of the tech stuff around here.”  
“Have you told him to take the video down yet?”  
Ned looks vaguely uncomfortable as he unlocks his car and gestures for the other two to get in. “Haven't gotten around to it yet.”  
“You literally have to say, like, five words.”  
“Get in the car, will you?”  
Duck has already taken shotgun, so Aubrey is forced to sit in the back. She stares at Ned in the mirror while he starts up the car, then sighs and resigns herself to looking out the window.  
“So are we just driving around the forest and running the critters over?” Ned asks as he starts driving.  
“That's one way to do it,” Duck replies, “But I was thinking we start near the arch, since that’s where they come from.”  
“Also the place where they chased me and Dani around,” Aubrey suggests. Ned gives her a quick frown in the mirror.  
“They chased you and who?”  
“Dani. She’s one of the lodge residents. We were out looking for anything that might prove Silvs were around and this wolf and wildcat came after us. I hit one of them with some fire, so that’s one less, I guess.”  
“Was she the one that drew the abomination?” Duck asks.  
“Yeah! She’s really good at drawing. And knows a lot about plants and stuff.” Aubrey smiles out at the snow. “She’s nice.”  
The car rattles as it passes over a bump, and Duck shifts in his seat, but otherwise the rest of the drive goes by in silence. Eventually the town outside the car shifts to dark trees, and they slow down along the path through the forest. Ned mutters to himself and speeds up at one point, glancing nervously out the window.  
When they reach the arch, the clearing is dark. The clouds above block any moonlight that had previously fallen over the rocks, and as they get out of the car, Duck clicks on a flashlight and shines it around.  
The clearing is more or less empty but for the three of them and the stone arch, with only some branches poking out of the snow from where they'd fallen on the ground accompanying them. Duck says, “We probably won’t find any footprints with the snow falling like this. Just, uh, let’s just look around and stick together. Ned, do you still have that gun?”  
Ned nods, and goes to the trunk to presumably retrieve it. Duck continues as he returns with it, “I’d like to minimize the amount of fire we use. I do have my sword, but we may not want to get in close quarters with whatever we see, so a gun might be useful.”  
“Coward,” comes a muffled voice from the scabbard Duck has slung over his back. He sighs and starts walking to the edge of the clearing, still sweeping around with his flashlight.  
“Come on,” he says, and Aubrey quickens her pace after him. Ned follows after a moment, still grumbling.  
The trees seem to swallow what little light there is as soon as they enter them. Aubrey is forced to keep her eyes on the ground to keep from tripping through the snow, almost running into a tree a few times. She distinctly hears Ned swear several times, and hears Duck’s sword — Bacon? — griping about the lack of use as they walk.  
A few times Aubrey could swear she could see eyes staring out at them from the darkness, but every time she lights a small flame to see more clearly and they disappear. She mentions it to Duck the fourth time it happens.  
“Either a trick of the light or they’re just watching us,” he says, “I dunno why they wouldn’t just come after us, but I dunno why they're around in the first place, either, so. Don’t shoot nothin’ at them if you see ‘em again.”  
“I'm impulsive, not dumb.”  
“Yeah, well, still. Don’t.”  
“Since when are you makin’ the rules?” Ned asks.  
“Since I’m a District Ranger who doesn’t want the forest to burn down, Ned.”  
Aubrey snorts, then yelps as she slips over a hidden patch of ice. She barely manages to catch herself on a tree trunk, scowling and then stiffening at a squishing sound and something viscous under her hands.  
“Aubrey?” Duck says, “You alright?”  
She looks down at the tree and blinks. The tree blinks back, eyes with no iris and black pupils staring back at her from grooves in the bark, oozing black slime under her hands.  
She yells and stumbles away from the tree. “It has eyes!” she shrieks, and Duck does a double take, with Ned hurrying closer to peer at it.  
“Ah, God.” Duck’s mouth twists into a grimace. “That’s, uh, that’s somethin’.”  
“Are the _trees_ doing this shit too, now?” Ned looks somewhere between frustrated and disgusted. “What do we do, shoot the trees?”  
“ _No_ ,” Duck says firmly, “We are going to approach this rationally, like adults. We still have the animals to look for.”  
Aubrey’s eyes fall to the roots of the tree and she shudders on instinct. “Or not,” she says, and points to the roots slowly enveloping the still shape of a fox.  
“What the _fuck_ ,” Duck says, “I don’t — alright, I'm lost. I don’t know what's going on. What, are they — is it _eating_ it? Why didn't it do this last time?”  
“Jesus Christ,” says Ned, “It couldn't just let the bugger go?”  
“I think it was already dead, once it got all goopy,” Aubrey says quietly, “The tree’s probably dead or dying, too.”  
“Aubrey, all the other eyes you saw — God, this is weird. I’ve seen weird shit but this is _really_ fucking weird, y’all.” Duck rubs his eyes. “I mean — the trees can’t hurt anyone, probably? So we can just leave them alone until we figure out what to do about ‘em.”  
“Sounds good,” Ned says, and he turns and starts walking back the way they came. Aubrey flexes her fingers, almost without thinking, making sure the goop didn’t do anything to her hands, before shuddering again and saying, “Yeah, we should — we should just get out of here. I kind of hate this.”  
“Fools!” Duck's sword cries, “Simply cut down the tree! Banish the darkness — it is what a hero does!”  
“Beacon,” Duck says, starting the slow trudge back to the clearing, “No.”  
“Oh, _Beacon,_ ” Aubrey says, following him, “That makes a lot more sense than _Bacon_.”  
Beacon sputters in outrage, and a thin smile appears on Duck's face.  
“There's worse things to be called,” he tells Beacon, and the sword mutters a few more nasty words before going silent.

—

They're halfway to the lodge by Aubrey’s guess when something _thumps_ into the side of the car.  
“What was that?” Aubrey asks, sitting up and peering out the window. Duck looks too, and shakes his head.  
“I don’t see anything —” he starts, but he's cut off by a shape hurtling out of the darkness and launching itself at the car. Aubrey sees four long legs and antlers before it crashes into the car and then falls away, back to the side of the road. She twists in her seat to look out the back and sees it pick itself up and start running again.  
“It’s a deer, I think,” she says, then, “Oh, God, it looks like it’s made of wood. Is that what the trees did to them? Some kind of weird metamorphosis? Why?”  
“Sturdier, probably,” Duck mutters, then says to Ned, “Try to lose it before we get to the lodge. I ain’t bringin’ trouble to Mama’s doorstep tonight.”  
Ned makes a vague noise of acknowledgement and makes a sharp turn. Aubrey yelps as she's nearly thrown across the backseat, and Duck turns to glare at her. “Put your seatbelt on!”  
“Yes, yeah, alright!” She scrambles back to the seat and clicks the seatbelt into place. Duck goes back to looking out the window as Ned starts maneuvering through the trees.  
“Ned,” Aubrey says loudly, “There's ways to lose tree animals other than driving _into the trees_.”  
“I’m working on it!”  
The car rocks as it trundles at a higher-than-safe speed through the snow and over whatever lies on the forest floor. The deer does seem to have disappeared, though, and Aubrey slowly sinks in her seat and exhales as Ned slows, turns, and starts driving back in the direction of the road.  
“I think that was the worst minute and a half of my life,” she whispers. Duck keeps scanning the trees around them, even as they return to the road and start making their way back to the lodge.  
“So… when we saw a tree eating that fox… was it, like, recycling?” Aubrey asks after a few minutes. Duck makes a vague noise but otherwise doesn't respond, apparently deep in thought, while Ned snorts.  
“More like a copy machine, if it was all wood,” he says, “Doesn't make any fuckin’ sense, but nothing up here does, anymore.”  
After that they all sink into silence, until Ned pulls up in front of Amnesty Lodge after what feels like hours. Aubrey nearly kicks open the door before the car’s even done moving and stumbles out, the cold air a shock to her lungs as snow crunches under her boots.  
The passenger side door opens and she hears Duck get out, and him and Ned arguing a little bit before the driver’s side door opens too and she hears Ned swearing as he slams it shut.  
“C’mon, Aubrey,” Duck says behind her, and she closes her eyes for a second, just breathing and waiting for her heart to stop pounding in her ears.  
When she opens them, they're held by another pair at the other end of the clearing — then another, and a third. She blinks, and a wildcat prowls from the woods into the light cast by the lanterns outside the lodge, followed by a limping buck and a wolf.  
All three of the animals’ hides have been replaced by twisting, knotted brown wood, their eyes dark and dead. She can almost hear their joints creaking as they draw nearer and she stares, and then Duck yells and she hears a shot ring out, so loud her ears hurt.  
The wolf stumbles, but the hole in its forehead doesn't seem to phase it as it keeps walking. Through the whining in her ears, Aubrey hears Ned say, “What the fuck?”  
Aubrey blinks again, and common sense seems to rush back into her with the force of a truck. She hadn't realized she’d been out of it until now, and she says, “You were right, Ned. They aren't animals. They're just wooden copies.”  
“How do we get rid of brainless wood?” Duck says, but she hears him draw Beacon from his back. The sword cackles in glee and starts babbling about technique and stance.  
And then she feels both Ned and Duck's eyes on her, and the answer pops into her head — the most obvious thing in the world.  
“Duh,” she says, “We burn it.” She turns to them for a split second to grin at them, and as she turns back she sees the wildcat launch itself forward.  
Adrenaline still roaring in her ears, Aubrey unclenches her fists and takes a few running steps forward, twisting and flicking her hands until a fire burns between them on instinct, and flings it towards the cat.  
It slams into its chest hard, and the cat is flung backwards noiselessly. It flies into a deep drift of snow and struggles there, the fire that hasn't been extinguished eating its way through its torso faster than she expected. She barely has time to say, “Holy shit,” before the buck and wolf leap forward towards her.  
Another shot rings out, and the wolf loses its momentum in the air and tumbles to Duck's feet, but the deer is upon her in seconds, antlers angled forward to ram her in a way she's pretty sure deer don't normally ram anyone. She dodges out of the way and it crashes into the side of Ned’s car, antlers making a sizable dent in the door. Out of the corner of her eye she sees the lodge door open, but she doesn't see who's there before the deer comes for her again.  
She ducks, but it catches her on the shoulder and she stumbles. Gritting her teeth, she reaches up and presses her hands to its throat, heat flooding her skin, and smoke begins to curl away from the wood. It doesn't try to escape — it probably doesn't feel pain — instead trying to gore her again. She tightens her grip and the wood hisses under her hands as Beacon yells somewhere in front of her.  
The buck jerks its neck away. There are two hand-shaped burns about an inch into the wood just under its chin, and it shakes its head before charging again. She dodges, and then another, louder shot goes off. She claps her hands to her ears and then pulls them away with a wince, startled at how hot they'd been. To her right, the deer skids across the ground, eventually crashing into the snow, where it lays silent. Aubrey shakes the noise out of her head and looks up.  
Mama stands near the door of the lodge, rifle raised, and Aubrey waves to her. Mama mouths something to her, or maybe she just can't hear her, and Aubrey turns just in time to see the deer struggle to its feet. She reacts on instinct, a rush of heat from her chest to her hands, and another ball of flame envelops it, melting a good amount of snow as it collapses, body charred and beginning to crumble.  
She turns, panting, to see Ned with an axe, standing over the now-headless wolf.  
The energy from only moments ago seems to drain out of her, and she sways on her feet, blinking as stars invade her vision and her mind whirls with dizziness.  
“Whoa there,” says Duck's voice, and she feels herself being steadied. “C’mon, let’s just get to the lodge, huh? God, you have really bad luck with this stuff, don’t you?”  
She nods, still reeling, and takes a step forward, then another, and another. She finds herself at the doorway sooner than she expected, and she stumbles away from Duck over the threshold, holding out an arm to catch herself on the wall before she can fall over.  
“So, uh,” Duck says, “We’ve had an interesting night.”  
“Clearly,” Mama responds, “You alright, Aubrey? Are you hurt?”  
Aubrey shakes her head. Her hands are trembling, but other than that, the dizziness has more or less faded and her vision is cleared, leaving only a deep exhaustion in her bones. “M’just tired,” she manages.  
She blinks away another head rush and looks back up, into the lobby.  
Devin and Dora are hovering by the residency hallway, exchanging identical startled looks. Moira is nowhere to be seen, and she can see Jake peering up over the twins’ shoulders, still wearing his sunglasses for some reason. He catches sight of Aubrey and says something she doesn't quite catch, and a moment later Dani appears, with wide eyes and Dr. Bonkers in her arms.  
“Hi, guys,” Aubrey mumbles, still not quite trusting her feet to hold her if she were to try to walk. “Said I wouldn't die.”  
She blinks in surprise as Mama picks her up under the arms and walks to the couch, depositing her there and giving her a firm pat on the shoulder. “That you did. Take a load off, because honestly? You look awful.”  
Aubrey opens her mouth to object but decides against it, sinking into the cushions and pressing the heels of her palms against her eyes. She hears Duck and Ned and Mama talking, and Devin and Dora and Jake jumping in to ask questions. She wants so much to just lie down and sleep and she doesn't even know _why_. Because of how many times she used her power?  
She's just tired. Her brain is fuzzy and going fuzzier and she thinks she might just doze off right here on the couch.  
“Hey,” comes Dani’s voice to her right. Aubrey drops her hands from her face and sees her sit down, Dr. Bonkers still in her arms, and manages a grin.  
“Hi,” she replies, and reaches to pat Dr. Bonker’s head.  
“What happened?” Dani asks. Aubrey can only shrug.  
“You aren’t hurt, right?”  
She shakes her head. “Not dead, either,” she repeats, “Told you so.”  
“Yeah, you did.”  
Aubrey shifts on the couch, pulling her legs up onto the cushions and leaning against Dani’s side, closing her eyes and mumbling, “M’ gonna sleep now.”  
“Uh. Okay.” She feels Dani shifting beside her, and moves her head to rest on her shoulder. “I mean, I’ll probably have to wake you up sooner or later?”  
“S’fine.” Aubrey sighs. “M’ really, really tired.”  
If Dani says anything else, Aubrey doesn’t hear it as she falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i did research on like 2 things before writing this ok im here to write magic and monsters not a realistic fiction book  
> also dani's not as prevalent in this one bc Action Time whooo  
> chapter 5 will be an epilogue of sorts. me finally wrapping up the blooming romance before Plot in the next installment of this which is a thing im doing. more info on that laterrrrr  
> uuuuuh im tired and my head hurts. shout out to the people in the tfw discord and ddddiscord yall are great!!!! ok that's it bye  
> OH WAIT ONE MORE THING ill probably be changing the name of this! if ur subscribed ull see it as like, "woodland interlude" or something similarly cheesy. thx


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end, for now.
> 
> Aubrey and Dani talk.

When Aubrey opens her eyes next, it’s dark. She sleepily deduces after a few moments that she’s in her bed, rolls over and goes back to sleep.  
When she wakes up again, it’s to weak sunlight shining through the window and spilling onto the floor. She blinks, events of the previous night coming back to her, and grimaces a little as she realizes she’s still got her jacket on. Sitting up, she stretches her arms over her head, eyes landing first on Dr. Bonkers, asleep in his bed, then on a piece of paper on the bedside table. Reaching for it, she finds the first side empty and flips it over.  
Her own eyes stare up at her, and Aubrey’s mouth falls open a little as she takes in the drawing. It’s pretty unmistakably her, from the shoulders up, complete with piercings, dyed hair, and a grin in charcoal, smudged in places but still striking. She’s half-sure her actual face doesn’t look this good. There’s no signature other than a little smiley face in the corner, and something that looks like it was scribbled out and then erased. She can guess, though, that it’s from Dani.  
“Wow,” she whispers.  
She carefully folds it and tucks it into the pocket of her jacket with Mama’s letter, then slides off the bed and casts Dr. Bonkers a last glance before heading out the door.  
Moira is sitting the wrong way on the piano bench, glancing up from her bagel as Aubrey enters and raising her eyebrows. “I heard you had a bit of an unfortunate encounter last night. You don’t look particularly dead.”  
“No, I promised I wouldn’t die. I don’t feel all that great, though.” The tips of Aubrey’s fingers have taken on a dull buzzing sensation, as well as her palms, and her entire body feels like when she was a kid staying up too far into the night. She tries to put it out of her mind and goes to find something to eat in the kitchen. As she opens a cupboard, she calls back, “Who told you I died?”  
“Oh, no one. But some of them were certainly acting like you might. It was a whole lot of drama. I thought you looked quite peaceful sleeping.”  
“Zero concern, huh?”  
Moira laughs. “I am more or less physically unkillable. Sometimes I forget that others do not share such perks. And you’re fine now, aren’t you?”  
“Well —”  
She’s cut off by the door swinging open, and she glances to see Jake shaking snow out of his hair and stomping it off his boots. Aubrey sighs and starts looking for yogurt to go with the granola she found while Jake mumbles to himself and stomps his way inside.  
“What happened to you?” Moira asks him. Jake snorts.  
“I ask a simple question and get hit in the face with a snowball. Unfair, man.”  
“Well, that depends on what the question was, I suppose.”  
Jake goes back to mumbling to himself and disappears down the residentiary hallway. Moira shakes her head and returns to gnawing on her bagel.  
Aubrey grabs some lettuce and rinses it off before going back to her room. She gives the lettuce to Dr. Bonkers and eats her own breakfast, squinting at her reflection in a mirror. The red dye in her hair has started to fade. She glances up as footsteps approach and Mama appears in the doorway.  
“Hey,” Mama says, “You feelin’ okay?”  
“More or less.”  
Mama comes to sit on the bed next to her, reaching to give Dr. Bonkers an absentminded pat. “What’d’you figure happened?”  
Aubrey shrugs. “I’m just tired.”  
“So, huh. Probably just overexerted yourself. You sure you’re alright?”  
“I will be,” Aubrey says. Mama nods and stands to leave.  
“Oh, before I forget,” she says, just at the doorway, “I do want to talk to you about what went down and all that. I talked with Duck and Ned last night, but I just wanna be sure of everything.”  
“Now?”  
“Later,” Mama says firmly, “I’ll come find you. Don’t go off into the woods in the meantime, alright?”  
“Gotcha.”  
Mama leaves the door open behind her, and Aubrey scoops up Dr. Bonkers and walks back out to the lobby. Moira is idling at the piano, shuffling through some papers — where else would she be — and Dora and Devin are yelling at each other over a game of chess that they must have set up while Aubrey was in her room. As she walks by the kitchen, she sees Barclay out of the corner of her eye, and he waves with his free hand, the other filling a cup of coffee. She gives him a quick wave back and then pushes open the door, pleasantly surprised by a lack of snow immediately beyond the threshold.  
Dr. Bonkers sniffs at the air and twitches his ears. Aubrey holds him a little closer to her chest. She’s pretty sure a rabbit is okay for most temperatures above zero, but being warmer can’t hurt him.  
The sounds of a snow shovel reach her ears, and she turns in its direction. It sounds like it’s coming from the other side of the lodge, where the garden sits in warmer weather.  
When she rounds the corner, Dani is there, clearing last night’s snow. She looks up as Aubrey approaches, eyes brightening as she smiles and straightens up, leaning on her shovel. “Hey, Aubrey. And Dr. Bonkers.”  
“Hi.” She takes a look around the garden Dani’s cleared a good half of it already. “You’re good at this.”  
“I do it a lot,” Dani tells her, still smiling. Her eyes soften and she adds, “You okay?”  
“Yeah. People ask me that a lot.” She kicks a chunk of snow by her foot, and it crumbles as it flies some five feet.  
“Well, yeah. You kind of passed out last night.”  
Aubrey shrugs as best she can with a ten pound rabbit in her arms, not really sure how to respond. Truthfully, she's not all that used to concern aimed at her, or at least not this much. She doesn't need to tell Dani that, though.  
Dani’s smile has faded somewhat, and Aubrey kind of wishes she didn't say anything in the first place, but then she shrugs in return and jerks her head towards a shed Aubrey never really noticed just beyond the lodge. “There’s shovels in there if you wanted to help. Though I guess you’ll have to put Dr. Bonkers somewhere first.”  
“Oh, yeah, for sure. Be right back.” Dani looks surprised as she turns back towards the lodge, and Aubrey hears her say, “You don’t actually have to help!” as she turns the corner.  
She negotiates with Dora and Devin to keep an eye on Dr. Bonkers while they play chess and heads back outside, breezing past a bewildered Dani on her way to the shed.  
“I wanna help,” she insists after returning with shovel in hand, Dani just staring at her wordlessly. “I don't really have anything better to do.”  
“You _want_ to help me shovel — alright, I’m not stopping you. Go ahead, I guess.” She shakes her head, lips quirking back into a smile, tucking stray hair back behind her ear, and Aubrey fumbles on the handle of the shovel for a second.  
They work in a kind of warm silence for a while, Aubrey occasionally swearing when snow gets into her combat boots and Dani laughing in return, until the garden is mostly cleared and Dani pauses to survey it. She smiles at nothing in particular and then at Aubrey, who grins back at her and stabs her shovel into the snow, mostly for dramatic effect.  
“Hope it doesn't snow tonight,” she remarks, and Dani groans.  
“Don't even _say_ that. You'll jinx it or something.”  
“Hey, you jinxed it a _while_ ago. _The trees are usually right._ And then it snowed.”  
Dani snorts but doesn't argue further, and Aubrey takes the opportunity to pull the paper out of her jacket. Aubrey looks up from unfolding it to see a weird expression on Dani’s face.  
“Uh, this was from you, right?” she asks. Dani nods slowly.  
“Sorry if it was weird,” she says after a second. “That I drew you. It's actually from, um, a while ago. Back when you first got here. Around then.” Her gaze drops to the ground.  
“What? No, Dani, this is an awesome drawing. Like, it's really nice. _You’re_ really nice.” Dani looks back up at her, lips parted slightly like she wants to say something, but all she says is, “Oh.”  
She looks relieved, though, even if Aubrey isn't sure why she'd be nervous about the drawing.  
“It’s really pretty,” Aubrey insists, and a small smile reappears on Dani’s face.  
“Well, it is you,” she says, kind of quiet and hesitant, and Aubrey feels her face heat up. She sputters, never managing more than a few syllables for a moment, and Dani laughs, soft and sweet, eyes warm and smile just a little shy.  
“You too,” Aubrey manages after a minute, and then adds, “I mean, you're really pretty too. I mean, _shit_ —” she fumbles the shovel again and it falls into the snow. She continues swearing as she retrieves it, snow melting under her fingers, and when she looks back up, Dani looks like she’s holding in laughter, shoulders shaking a little bit and hand over her mouth.  
“Oh my _God,”_ Aubrey mutters.  
“You’re pretty when you're embarrassed too,” Dani giggles.  
“Okay, now you're making fun of me.” Despite herself, Aubrey is grinning again. If it was true that smiles were infectious, she never wanted to stop, if it meant Dani would too.  
“I’m not!” Dani lets her shovel clatter to the ground as she nears, but she doesn't seem to know what to do once she's there. She just crosses her arms and looks down the half foot or so that separates them. Aubrey holds her gaze, waiting to see if she has anything else to say.  
“I'm not,” she repeats slowly, “You’re cute. And funny, and brave, and cheerful.”  
Aubrey stares at her, and after a few seconds Dani continues, voice quiet and a little shaky.  
“Honestly, Aubrey?” She huffs out a laugh. “I kind of have a crush on you. You're… really great.”  
Oh.  
And then, out loud, Aubrey repeats, “Oh.”  
Dani is staring at her, smile gone, and Aubrey doesn’t put a lot of thought into her next words.  
“That's convenient,” she says.  
“What?”  
“Uh. I kind of. Also. Yes.” Aubrey shuts her mouth and tries again. “I’m gay.”  
“Well —”  
“That wasn't what I meant to say,” Aubrey squeaks. She presses a hand to her face and groans. “Okay. Jesus. I think I got it.”  
Dani offers, “Are you trying to say that you also —”  
“Yes, holy shit. Yeah. A lot. I like you a lot.” She takes her hand away from her face and catches Dani’s eyes, wide and bright.  
“That is convenient,” she says.  
There's maybe half a foot of space between them, and the way Dani is looking at her right now, with a soft, surprised smile, Aubrey wants so badly to close it and kiss her.  
She inhales and takes a step forward, and Mama’s voice comes from the front end of the lodge.  
“Aubrey, I dunno where you are, but we should have that talk now. Anytime.”  
Aubrey sighs and starts to walk in the direction of the lodge. She stops at Dani’s hand on her arm, and freezes at the ghost of her lips on her cheek.  
“Talk later?” Dani offers. Aubrey nods quickly and takes off, stopping just outside the door and patting her cheek a few times, sure she must be grinning like an idiot but not really caring.

—

All Mama seems to want is a summary of what Aubrey remembers from the night before, which is most of it. When she leaves the office, Mama is muttering about plants and rustling through some papers on her desk.  
Aubrey stays in her room for a while, idly practicing with her magic tools, accidentally singing a few cards while she waits for something she's not sure of. Dr. Bonkers mostly sleeps, but he twitches his ears at the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. Aubrey looks up to see Dani in the doorway and sits up, clearing some of her stuff from the bed and patting the empty space. Dani sits down after a moment's hesitation, and says, “So.”  
“Yeah,” Aubrey says.  
There's a good thirty seconds of silence, until finally Aubrey asks, “So, do you want to like, hang out in town or something? Sometime?”  
“...You mean a date?”  
“Yes. That.”  
“You can just say date, you know.” Dani’s eyes have a glint of amusement to them, but she continues, a little softer, “Yeah, I would like to.”  
“Nice. Cool. Great.” Aubrey taps a nervous rhythm on the bed with her fingers. “Um, where?”  
Dani hums thoughtfully. “Maybe we can figure it out as we go. It could be fun.”  
“That's the intent of a date,” Aubrey agrees, “Is fun.”  
“When should we go?”  
“Anytime’s okay,” Aubrey says immediately. She honestly would go wander the town with Dani at ten minutes to midnight as long as they were calling it a date.  
“Tomorrow?” Dani suggests.  
Aubrey nods, and Dani smiles as she stands up. “It’s a date, then.”  
Aubrey can’t help but grin herself at that, and she says, “I guess it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank y'all so much for reading. i wanna write more amnesty for sure but after around 13k words im definitely gonna take a bit of a break haha  
> i don't really have anything else to say. if you wanna see more, ill be putting this as the first part of a series sooner or later, so watch out for that? but again, thanks so much. this is the first time ive ever finished a multichapter fic so im pretty happy about it.  
> have a good day, everyone. see ya around :-)

**Author's Note:**

> aubrey and dani are the ultimate goth/prep couple  
> so hey! hi! if you're reading this now, we're either at the end of this or very close (i plan this to end at 5 chapters lol)  
> ive had a lot of fun writing just this short (lmao) story, and im so grateful for all the lovely comments and kudos! this is not the end; i have a rough plot for a broader continuation of this in the makings, so! anyways! again, thanks so much for reading. i loved writing these gay fantasy girls.  
> you can find me on tumblr, too — my writing blog is @hiwrighter and my main is @starofdeltora :-)


End file.
